Preface

The third UNEP Global Environment Outlook
report (GEO-3) provides an opportune brief for the 2002 World Summit
on Sustainable Development (WSSD), to be held later this year in Johannesburg,
South Africa.

It is a feat of collaboration between UNEP and some 1 000 individuals
and 40 institutions from around the world. It picks up and weaves together
the strands of debate and action on the environment that lead forward
from that linchpin of modern environment and development thinking, the
1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, and through the 1992
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) to where
we stand today. GEO-3 sets out to provide global and regional perspectives
on the past, present and future environment, linked together with telling
examples from within the regions to form a comprehensive and integrated
assessment.

An important aspect of the GEO process is capacity building for the collaborating
centres directly involved in this initiative and for a wider range of
individuals and institutions whose work forms the foundation of environmental
assessment - from national through global levels. For example, UNEP has,
through a comprehensive Internet-based data portal, made relevant data
more accessible to collaborating centres to strengthen analysis and reporting.
Capacity building has also involved formal and practical training in integrated
environmental assessment, and such training will be expanded in the coming
years.

In terms of the GEO-3 report itself, an overview of major developments
between 1972 and 2002 highlights significant milestones and integrates
environmental, economic and social factors within a unified world view.
The retrospective chapter explores many of these developments in greater
depth from global and regional standpoints. The report presents a global
overview and also directs a spotlight onto two or three key issues that
are considered paramount in each of the seven regional arenas under each
of eight environmental themes in turn: land, forests, biodiversity, freshwater,
coastal and marine areas, atmosphere, urban areas and disasters.

Analysing the most up-to-date and reliable information on these issues
reveals the critical trends during the 30-year period - critical trends
about the environment, and about the impacts that environmental change
have had on people. Perhaps even more importantly, it highlights the evolution
of environmental policy responses that society has (or sometimes has not)
put in place to ensure environmental security and sustainability.

Sustainable development rests on three pillars - society, economy and
environment. The environmental pillar provides the physical resources
and ecosystem services on which humankind depends. Growing evidence that
many aspects of the environment are still degrading leads us to the conclusion
that people are becoming increasingly vulnerable to environmental change.
Some countries can cope but many others remain at risk and when that risk
becomes a reality their dreams of sustainable development are set back
by decades. The notion of human vulnerability to environmental change
has been incorporated specifically into this GEO assessment to demonstrate
UNEP concern in an area which has a strong bearing on the success of sustainable
development. UNEP places the concept of human vulnerability to environmental
change high on its future programme of work.

GEO-3 also breaks new ground by using scenario analysis to explore
the environmental outlook, fastforwarding the reader into an array of
alternative futures that provide insight on where events could lead us
at various stages between 2002 and 2032. While some of the possible developments
may seem far removed from current circumstances, others have been predetermined
by the decisions and actions we have already taken. We know that some
of the policy approaches followed in the past have not lived up to expectations
and that institutional weaknesses have played an inevitable part in such
slippages. At the Rio +5 event in 1997, it became clear that progress
had fallen short of the goals set in 1992. Five years later the challenges
remain no less exacting. Yet we at UNEP remain convinced that it lies
well within the scope of human determination and ingenuity to come up
with appropriate policy packages and use them to ensure that fundamental
environmental conditions can and will get steadily better, not stealthily
worse.

This report abounds with information that can serve as a firm foundation
for the WSSD review of policies for sustainable development. I hope many
will find it useful as an aid to prepare for the Summit, during the event
itself and well beyond. It is being published in all the official UN languages
so that people and communities round the world can make use of its insights
to form their own position on what is at stake and what needs to be done.
On a personal note, I hope that it will inspire you, the reader, to raise
your commitment to environmental care to a summit of its own.

Klaus Töpfer
United Nations Under-Secretary General
and Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme